INFL UENCE OF MODERN SCIENCE UPON BELIEF IN MIR A CLES. 233 



The logic of the difficulty resembles the famous proof thaf the minute hand 

 of the clock can never overtake the hour-hand. At one oclock the minute-hand 

 points to twelve, and the hour-hand to one. When the minute-hand reaches one, 

 the hour-hand has advanced one-twelfth as much farther. When the minute-hand 

 has traversed that one-twelfth the hour-hand has again advanced one-twelfth as 

 much farther, and so on forever. Therefore the minute-hand can never overtake 

 the hour-hand. 



I suppose it does not seem incredible that Omniscience should somehow be 

 able to break from these toils of logical impossibility, which the students of physi- 

 cal science have woven. 



Even though all the scientists should unitedly proclaim that God is subject 

 to the laws of matter, a shackled prisoner, still we should remember that the 

 Lion of the tribe of Judah opened the book with seven seals, and we should ex- 

 pect the Almighty to break the scientific ropes and chains, which these audacious 

 philosophers are trying to put about him. 



The Christian man is not frightened when he is told that God could never 

 have taken Enoch alive to heaven, because, before he had risen to the height of 

 seven miles, he would have been "frozen perfectly stiff." In spite of modern 

 infidelity, cultivated Christian thinkers will still believe that Elijah could have 

 reached heaven without a chariot of fire to help him through the cold. 



Can the All-Powerful and All-Knowing God be stopped by a smart conun- 

 drum and chained by a logical fallacy ? 



THE GREAT CENTRAL MIRACLE 



Of the universe is the Lord Jesus Christ himself. He is miraculous in his origin, 

 miraculous in his birth, miraculous in his sinlessness and moral beauty, miraculous 

 in his resurrection from the dead (the b&st attested of all historic facts), and 

 miraculous in his ascension into heaven. 



Either Christ was a miracle in these ways and a miracle worker, or he was 

 an impostor. 



It is not credible that any advance of physical science will lead the world to 

 reject Jesus Christ as a fraud and impostor. ' 



By the nature of the case, miracles, which are only needed as signs to con- 

 firm the mission of a moral teacher, cannot be very frequent. They can come 

 only in those moral exigencies that require them, but then they must come. 

 Then it would be unnatural not to find the supernatural. 



THE TEMPORARY EFFECT 



Of modern scientific infidelity, it need not be denied, is more or less, to weaken 

 faith in the supernatural. The confident and thousand times repeated asser- 

 tions of lecturers and editors, that modern science has undermmed the Bible and 

 the church, have produced a natural effect. The mind is so constituted as to be 

 influenced by the din of repetition. The persistent cry has, no doubt in numer- 

 ous instances, weakened faith, and consequently damaged morality. 



Unbelievers have been strengthened in their convictions, and even some of 

 God's own people have taken a temporary refuge in scientific doubts while they 



